


Intimate Counselors

by mindbending



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: First Kiss, Flowers, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Presents, alleged sugar baby!sokka, alleged sugar daddy!zuko, starring two oblivious dorks and zuko's no-good very bad self-esteem issues, zuko funds sokka's shopping habit and things spiral from there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24949420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindbending/pseuds/mindbending
Summary: The Fire Nation's royal accountant lunges towards Zuko, brandishing a stack of receipts like a shield. “I’m referring to the flowers you bought him.”“That was a matter of cultural exchange."“What about the jewelry?”“That wasn’t jewelry, it was just gem-enhanced accessories!”"But you ordered himfive sets of custom nightclothes!”(For some reason, the whole world's convinced that Zuko is Sokka's sugar daddy.)
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 308
Kudos: 5163
Collections: A:tla, escapism (to forget that the world is a burning hellscape)





	Intimate Counselors

It starts with the sea prunes.

The Fire Nation promotes peace nowadays, and peace promotes business and international trade. It’s why Caldera’s markets got overrun by traders selling Earth Kingdom wares that Zuko knows firsthand are second-rate and priced at three times their usual value. But they sell, and there’s kids running around the streets with toys marked “Made in Earth Kingdom” and properly, fairly paid for, and he can’t bring himself to complain.

Sokka’s back at Caldera for the week, working as a Water Tribe ambassador at the latest geopolitical summit, and via a thirty-step master plan Zuko has no hope of comprehending he convinces all of the Fire Nation’s advisors that Zuko _has_ to leave the palace and personally give him a guided tour of the city. It’s a sacred matter of Southern Water Tribe custom, he declares in the first conference. There’ll be a war if Zuko _doesn’t_ drop everything to show Sokka around.

Zuko nearly laughs, hearing that. He keeps his silence instead, allowing himself only a slanted little smirk, and watches as his counselors discuss the matter. He’s had ten meetings scheduled every day, he’s stayed up past midnight catching up on the scrolls he has to read and the missives that need answering, he knows on every rational level that he doesn’t have _time_ for Sokka’s antics.

Zuko takes another long look at Sokka’s brilliant smile- accompanied by a devious wink in his direction- and keeps his silence.

(If Zuko’s honest with himself, it might’ve started with Sokka’s smile in that conference. Or maybe it began years ago during the war, when Sokka smiled wide and dazzling at him though he couldn’t possibly deserve it yet.)

One hour later, Sokka’s crowing with glee at a plan well executed and hauling Zuko down a jam-packed Caldera street, their hands folded tightly so they won’t lose each other. With the other hand, Zuko alternates between tugging down the hood that hides his face and confirming that no pickpocket’s gotten to his well-filled royal wallet yet. He grabbed it just in case as Sokka dragged him out of the palace, though it’s not like he’s going to _use_ it. As Fire Lord, he wants for nothing.

(Nothing that money can buy, though sometimes he collapses in bed late at night and can’t sleep, tossed about by an unutterable yearning until the sun hauls him back up again. Unfortunately, nothing in a Caldera market can fix _that.)_

Abruptly, Sokka stops in front of a restaurant. Zuko nearly crashes into him. 

“Awesome!” Sokka peers down at the menu. “It’s a fusion restaurant.”

“What’s that?”

“They’re combining recipes from all over the world,” he says. “Look, they’ve got moon peaches and Jennamite candy cake from the Earth Kingdom, and ash banana bread from here and...whoa, sea prunes!”

He hollers “sea prunes,” cutting through even the market’s ambient noise. Zuko tugs his hood down further as people look.

“Sea prunes are the best crop from the Southern Water Tribe,” Sokka chatters, oblivious to the attention he’s drawing. “I eat them in stew every day back home, but they’re grilling them here, and that could work too if you get the heat right. I bet they’d get the heat right, right? We’ve gotta try it.”

“Uh-”

“Come on!” Sokka takes his hand again and pulls him over the threshold. “Table for two please.”

“I’m sorry,” replies the hostess, dressed in flowing crimson silk. “I’m afraid all our tables for dinner have been reserved-”

A few inches behind Sokka, Zuko casually shakes off his hood.

“Actually, one just opened up!”

/

“They got the heat wrong! How did the _Fire Nation_ get the heat wrong?”

As Sokka orates with his mouth half-full, Zuko glares skeptically at his own bowl of sea prunes. He’s not sure what they’re supposed to look like, but these are a shriveled lavender color, as if all the life has been sucked out of them. Zuko can sympathize.

After attempting his second prune, Sokka pushes the bowl away. He glares down at the other dishes he ordered with a broody silence that just doesn’t work on his face. Brooding is _Zuko’s_ territory.

“How are you supposed to do it?” Zuko asks, trying to cheer him up.

“Sear it with a flash of high heat,” Sokka grumbles back, begrudgingly trying a fried crab leg instead. “That locks in the juices and makes the outside crunchy.”

Zuko nods, more interested than he intends to show. “So.”

He probably should have figured out the end of the sentence before starting. Sokka lifts his eyebrows, curious. “So?”

“So…” Stalling, Zuko pours Sokka’s sea prunes into his own bowl. They’re dry and tasteless and he can’t honestly say he _likes_ them, but anything’s edible with enough chili paste. “Why’d you maneuver me out here today?”

“‘Cause you look like you haven’t slept _or_ smiled since the last time I saw you.”

“I haven’t smiled in sixteen years,” he deadpans.

“Uh-huh,” snorts Sokka. “See, _I_ distinctly remember Aang challenging you to a tickle war-”

“First of all, he cheated. Second, I let out one dignified snort at the most!”

“So that’s how you say ‘giggled like a chimp-hyena’ in the Fire Nation,” Sokka quips back. “Good to know the translation, what with me being ambassador and all-”

Sokka grins merrily at him, and for some reason, Zuko flushes red. But before he can sputter out a response, a waiter approaches, bows, places a small black envelope by Zuko’s arm, and bows again before leaving.

While Sokka gapes at the waiter- who’s now bowing again from ten feet away, just for good measure- Zuko opens the envelope and finds the dinner bill.

_They’re charging one gold coin per sea prune._

“What’s that?” Sokka prods.

“A note,” Zuko lies, “Confidential. Fire Lord business.”

Good thing he brought the royal wallet.

/

Inexplicably, after returning home from dinner with Sokka, Zuko sleeps a solid eight hours.

/

The next time the Southern Water Tribe is scheduled to send its ambassador, Zuko calls for a meeting with his royal accountant.

“I’ll certainly authorize your head chef to place the order. But might I ask _why_ you require fifty fresh sea prunes?”

“They’re vital tools for firebending practice,” Zuko answers, looking him dead in the eyes. “Cooking them requires a blend of both powerful heat and delicacy.”

“...that makes perfect sense, Your Majesty.”

/

Sokka’s eyes pop out when Zuko escorts him to his guest quarters and there, waiting right by the bed, is a platter of sea prunes personally seared by the Fire Lord. Sokka pops one in his mouth, face scrunched up in skepticism that melts at the first bite, and then proceeds to gobble the prunes up, jamming two in his mouth at a time and moaning in delight. Zuko squashes several inappropriate thoughts and a most un-kingly impulse to dance on the palace roof.

/

“Young Sokka forged his own sword,” Master Piandao recounts to Zuko over tea. “A truly ingenious creation.”

“He forged it from a meteor, right?” 

Hearing the unusual interest in his voice, Master Piandao shoots Zuko a curious look. “Quite so. A pity he lost it in the war.”

“He...what?” Now Zuko stares at him in open shock.

It’s an unacceptable state of affairs. It’s peacetime now, but as a potential target for violence, a diplomat surely must be well-armed when traveling. Moreover, Zuko’s seen Sokka fight, and while he still deems _himself_ more skilled with a blade, a swordsman of Sokka’s caliber deserves a fine weapon.

(He can almost hear Sokka correcting him: _I deserve an_ out-of-this-world _weapon! Get it?)_

“Is there more to the meteor?”

“Certainly. The vast majority of it remains unmoved near my estate.”

“And,” Zuko asks, sipping his tea, “how much would it cost for you to make him a replica?”

/

Sokka’s lie about how the Fire Lord “must personally give the Water Nation ambassador a tour of Caldera” comes in handy next year. Caldera’s decked out for the Fire Lily festival, and though Zuko hasn’t been able to schedule an escape outside the palace gates all week, he can smell the roasting meat all the way from the party. Sokka smells it too. It’s the first thing he comments on after arriving at the palace, just after giving the Fire Lord a hug and remarking that Zuko’s at risk of almost looking _pleased_ at his presence. Really, Zuko is too pleased to drag _him_ by the hand this time, out of the stuffy palace, straight to a festival stall selling only meat skewers.

Meat holds Sokka’s attention through three skewers and a foot-high stack of bao, but then Zuko catches him gawping at the garlands of fire lilies, strung from building to building, glimmering in the night.

If Zuko promptly orders that a Fire Nation bouquet be sent to the Water Tribe rooms (and he does, and his attendants present him with three extravagant designs, and he picks one stuffed with lilies and deep red fire roses _strictly because it’s the most aesthetically pleasing),_ it’s only to honor the festival spirit.

/

Next time Sokka shows up, he’s got a scar healing on his shoulder. He spills the entire story the second he sees Zuko. 

Turns out Sokka got his scar in a streetfight.

In a fight he might’ve started.

Because a random stranger had demeaned Zuko as a “warped and reckless dictator,” and Sokka had replied, “hey, that’s _my_ warped and reckless dictator you’re insulting,” and then Sokka defended his point of view (non-lethally, he swears) with his fancy new space sword.

Zuko politely writes to Master Piandao, requesting that he make Sokka a full suit of meteorite armor.

/

Zuko shows Sokka the turtleduck pond, and Sokka takes to them like a humminghawk takes to the sky. He spends half an hour tearing up bread to feed them, and Zuko spends half an hour gazing at him, suppressing the instinct to buy Sokka an entire flock’s worth of turtleducklings if only because they wouldn’t survive the South Pole’s climate.

(He could offer to keep the turtleducklings here, as an incentive or a plea to visit more often. But even with the crown on his head Zuko’s keenly aware of his shortcomings, the failures of grace and wit and goodness that make him difficult for anyone to tolerate in large doses, no matter how kind-hearted they might be. So he keeps his silence.)

/

The next time Sokka pulls him into a shopping trip, Zuko takes two wallets. Then Sokka skips into a shop, drawn in by the shiny window display, and Zuko doubts whether two wallets will be enough.

He’s never been here before, but he knows this place by reputation. Everyone in the upper circles of the Fire Nation does. Even in the old days when the Fire Nation was twice its current size, it was the most exclusive, excessive, and _expensive_ jewelry shop in the country.

As Sokka bounds towards a particularly sparkly display case, Zuko surveys the store. Its offerings are unquestionably beautiful, the gemstones large and exquisitely carved, almost certainly by skilled earthbenders. Unfortunately, there’s no prices listed anywhere, and in the Fire Nation that can mean only one thing: if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.

Zuko meanders over to Sokka, who’s currently asking an employee whether a green emerald-studded belt comes in blue instead.

“Really?” Zuko intones. “You’re buying jewelry?”

“It’s not jewelry! It’s a gem-enhanced accessory!”

They have the belt in blue, with ten sapphires embedded in an intricate design. Seeing Sokka’s utter bliss, Zuko sighs and nods to the employee, silently agreeing to purchase it.

And a dagger encrusted with blue-tinged moonstones.

And a charm of yellow gold, because it’s totally shaped like a boomerang if you squint.

One employee carefully packs Sokka’s new belongings in approximately fifty layers of wrapping. Another gestures discreetly to Zuko, who slips into a backroom with her and settles the bill.

When he emerges, Sokka beams at him from behind his stack of boxes. “Wow, you’re fast at haggling!”

“What?”

As Sokka jauntily exits the shop, he explains, “We have a market like this back home every spring. No prices anywhere; you’ve gotta make your offer and then they make their offer and then you try to bargain their price down! I once got a spear for two bags of seal jerky that way.”

“...Yeah. I haggled the prices down,” Zuko fibs as he follows Sokka out, now left with only two coins in his two royal wallets. “Only the lowest prices for the Fire Lord.”

/

Zuko glares at his daily schedule, because something’s backwards. Apparently, his royal accountant has demanded a meeting with _him._

“I regret to inform you, Fire Lord Zuko-” the accountant twitches as he delivers his news, no doubt still haunted by memories of Ozai- “that if you continue your current rate of spending, your household will exceed its current budget two months early.”

Zuko’s never needed extreme luxuries, he’s tried to moderate his spending in all areas but one, and so he can immediately guess what’s driven him over budget.

He straightens up. “What do you suggest?”

“To respect the current budget, you have two options. You can reduce certain...external costs. Alternatively, you could in theory make drastic cuts to your own household expenses.”

“I’ll do that,” Zuko replies easily. “I’ve done my own hair before, I don’t need six people to greet me in the morning, I’ll give everyone glowing recommendations so they can find other jobs in the city.”

The moment he says it, he has a feeling that was the wrong answer.

The accountant gives a particularly pronounced twitch. “There is also...another option.” He rummages in his desk and pulls out a scroll, tentatively handing it over. “You could increase your funding by formally informing the treasury of another...household member.”

Zuko skims the paperwork. It’s dense legalese, announcing that Sokka requires his own stipend from the treasury. It’s all perfectly standard, right up until Zuko sees that the “relationship” field has been filled out with the words “intimate counselor.”

He throws the scroll back on the desk and just barely keeps from breathing fire.

“This is the wrong form.”

“My prince, I vow to be entirely discreet when filing-”

“No,” Zuko says, shooting to his feet, “you can’t file that because it’s _not true.”_ He takes a few deep breaths and then begins again, forcibly keeping his voice even. “Since you’re discreet, I can count on you not to let a word of this out to anyone, right?”

The accountant blinks at him.

“Has the entire household heard?” 

He’s met with silence.

“Has the entire city heard?”

The accountant’s jaw trembles.

_“The entire country?”_

“...I believe it is discussed in the court of Ba Sing Se.”

Zuko can only blink back at him for a moment. Then he splutters in exasperation.

For his part, his accountant’s equally bewildered, at risk of combusting on the spot. “But how could he be anything else?”

“What do you _mean?”_ Zuko demands.

The accountant lunges forward, rifling through the papers on his desk. When he rises again, he brandishes a stack of receipts like a shield. “I’m referring to the flowers.”

 _“That_ was a matter of cultural exchange.”

“What about the jewelry?”

“That wasn’t jewelry, it was just gem-enhanced accessories!”

“You had a tailor make him gloves-”

“How else could he get Hawky to stop scratching him?”

“And from the same tailor’s shop, you ordered him five sets of custom nightclothes-”

“Because he said it got too hot here at night, he’s not used to our climate-”

“But you personally sent back the first set to the tailors with notes on the design!”

“Because,” Zuko squawks, “they were all _red_ and the Water Tribe wears blue! And I only got him nightclothes in the first place because that’s his favorite activity!” As the accountant stares mutely at him, Zuko realizes what he just said. “Sleeping! _Being asleep is his favorite activity!”_

During the ensuing silence, in an elegant and entirely kingly fashion, Zuko flees.

He runs before one of them sets something on fire, runs on instinct out of the suffocating palace and into the sunshine, runs towards the turtleduck pond. Flushed and breathless, he stops short upon seeing someone else in his sanctuary.

“What happened?” Sokka’s sitting by the pond with a massive chunk of bread. He looks up when Zuko storms in, frowning at his obvious distress. 

Zuko collapses on the ground beside him. “Nothing.”

“I don’t have magic earth-seeing powers, but even I can tell that’s a giant lie.”

Zuko's fury flares once more, because he never meant for them to say anything like this about Sokka, to imply that all Sokka has to offer is his _body._

(He only ever meant to make Sokka smile.)

“Apparently," he mutters, "there’s a rumor that says you’re...my intimate counselor.”

Sokka looks at him for a moment more and then offers him half the bread, and Zuko takes it. The act of shredding it up into turtleduck-bite-sized pieces calms him a bit.

“So what’s wrong with that?”

Zuko glowers at him.

“Seriously,” Sokka persists. “Kinda flattering, actually. You’ve got all these great advisors, it’s pretty cool that people think _I’m_ your closest advisor-”

Zuko interrupts: “That’s not what ‘intimate counselor’ means.”

He falls into an anguished silence.

“So are you going to tell me what it means?” Sokka nudges his side a moment later. “Or are you just going to sit there moping mysteriously-”

“Okay, okay! Just.” He takes a deep, steadying breath. “I need a second.”

“...Okay.”

Zuko scrambles, because he’s not the talker. Sokka’s the one with the brilliant tactics and easy wit, not him. “So...they’re not saying you work for me, exactly. But there’s an implication of, I don’t know, patronage.”

Sokka keeps looking at him, blissfully oblivious.

“They’re saying that I...” Zuko trails off, attempting to translate the phrase “intimate counselor” as delicately as possible. Though he’s spent his entire life in some state of embarrassment it’s never before been quite so acute. "They're saying I give you gifts."

“That’s true,” Sokka chirps. “You give me very nice gifts.”

Zuko would like Agni to shoot him down on the spot. “And they think that in return you...give me services.”

“You mean my impeccable diplomacy and endless supply of jokes?”

“I mean _sex,_ Sokka!”

Zuko roars the words. For a moment there’s no sound besides the echo and the clucking of startled turtleducks. For a moment, Zuko can’t see anything but Sokka’s face contorting before him, somersaulting through a dizzying array of expressions before settling on a scowl.

“That’s really insulting,” Sokka says at last.

“Yeah.”

“I mean, _really_ insulting.”

“I know!”

“They think,” Sokka protests, “that all you have to offer is your _money?_ How much more offensive could they get?”

“...what.”

“...What were _you_ insulted about?”

“The fact that they think all I’d want from you is sex!”

Zuko didn’t think he could stick his foot further into his mouth, but he’s pretty sure the reason he can’t breathe is it’s currently down in his lungs.

“So to be clear,” Sokka says, feeling his way forward, “neither of us is upset at the idea of us being together.”

“No,” Zuko chokes out. “That’s not an issue.”

He hates the alleged trappings of their alleged relationship, that people think it’s just a trade of presents for pleasure. But the underlying idea that he and Sokka could be lovers at all? That’s a pipe dream. A delusional fantasy Zuko’s sure he can’t reach. It’s hardly an _issue._

“That’s good,” Sokka remarks pleasantly. “Makes the next step of my evil and mostly-improvised plan much easier.”

He launches an ambush.

Against Zuko's mouth.

Sokka’s kisses taste like salt and ocean, and if his brain was still working Zuko would know that’s just the sea prunes, but as all his stress and frustration dissolves away he finds his brain is absent, off on a well-deserved vacation.

When Sokka pulls away, he’s wearing that same smug, brilliant smile that caught Zuko in the first place. “How much money did you spend buying me stuff?”

“You don’t have to repay-”

“I’m not going to pay in cash, just public gifts. Maybe sea prunes?”

“...Great.”

Sokka’s eyes take on the sly glint that heralds a particularly harebrained scheme, and it makes Zuko want to kiss him all over again.

“Gotta make it very clear to the world,” Sokka declares, “that you’re _my_ trusted, adored...intimate counselor.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Kudos and comments are much appreciated <3
> 
> The lovely [stan_jaskier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stan_jaskier) has drawn exquisite art of Zukka in the jewelry shop. Check it out [here](https://sword-over-water.tumblr.com/post/622279553637810176/zuko-meanders-over-to-sokka-whos-currently).
> 
> P.S. I wrote [another fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24972334) that feels a lot like this one, in case you are interested...

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Intimate Counselors [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29806743) by [Rionaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rionaa/pseuds/Rionaa)




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